Dearly Beloved
by MizJoely
Summary: Post HLV Sherlolly. Moriarty is back, but it isn't Sherlock he's after this time; it's Molly.
1. Wedding Crasher

_A/N: Ok, so this is another story from tumblr that I kind of threw together. There will probably be four or five parts to it. It's a post HLV story, probably not the only one I'll be writing, but I was urged to share so here I am, sharing, lol. I own nothing and no one and thank you all in advance for checking this out._**  
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"You may now kiss the bride."

Sherlock leaned forward and tenderly kissed Molly, whose eyes had fluttered shut. She was dressed in a simple white cotton dress and clutched a small bouquet of flowers from Mary's small garden in her hands. The matching gold rings gleamed on her and Sherlock's fingers, and she thought she'd never been happier in her life.

"Awww, so sweet. Can't believe I missed the ceremony, but at least I'm here in time to catch the bouquet!"

Molly gasped and pulled away from Sherlock, who was glaring at the intruder, standing insouciantly by the door to the judge's chambers, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a gun that was trained on the happy couple. John and Mary had turned and started to move, but the gun held them in their places on either side of Sherlock and Molly.

Looking from one shocked, angry face to the other, Jim Moriarty's lips stretched in a manic grin. "Did you miss me?"

Moriarty's grin didn't falter even for a second as two other gunmen entered the judge's chamber, swiftly patting John and Mary down and confiscating their mobiles before herding them into the small storage cupboard and locking them in. Sherlock watched coolly as one of them jammed a chair under the handle. He rubbed his fingers soothingly over Molly's as she clutched his hand tighter, her face pale and drawn.

It wasn't lost on either of them that the judge who had just performed their wedding ceremony wasn't reacting to any of this. Clearly he'd been in on it, bribed or threatened into allowing Moriarty to do as he pleased.

"What do you want?" Sherlock finally asked, ignoring the way Molly's fingers tightened on his, as if trying to silently warn him to shut up and not antagonize her psychopathic ex-boyfriend.

"Oh, the usual," Moriarty replied, strolling into the room and stopping directly in front of the newlyweds. "A slice of wedding cake, a glass of champagne…" He swiveled his head and stared coldly at Molly. "A kiss from the bride."

Sherlock moved so that he stood between Moriarty and Molly, who had gone rigid with a combination of terror and loathing. The barrel of Moriarty's gun was pressed to his chest, but Sherlock remained between them, unheeding of the threat. "No," he ground out. He was still holding his wife's hand (was she his wife? was that actually Judge Harding standing in front of the small podium, or one of Moriarty's henchmen playing a part?), which had gone cold in his grasp. But she wasn't crying; he was absurdly proud of her silence, even knowing it was as much due to shock as to her own self-control. "Stay away from my wife, Jim. This is between the two of us."

Moriarty put his head back and laughed. Sherlock could have gone for the weapon, snatched it from his foe's hand, but the two lackeys had their weapons trained on him – and more importantly, Molly – and he knew it would be a futile gesture at best. When Moriarty had finished with his show of mirth, he gazed at Sherlock, his eyes dead and nearly black. Shark-like, John had described them in his blog, and that description, although overused and cliché, was nevertheless the one that fit.

"Sorry, Sherlock," he said, shaking his head in mock sorrow. "That's not the game I'm playing now." He leaned forward, as always unintimidated by the height difference between them, uncaring that Sherlock was taller and therefore supposedly held the psychological advantage. "The game I'm playing doesn't involve you, except peripherally." His eyes drifted over Sherlock's shoulder, clearly locking onto Molly's face. "This game is called Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses Girl..."

He reached up suddenly and smashed the butt of his pistol against Sherlock's forehead. As the consulting detective collapsed to the floor, struggling to hang onto his consciousness, he heard Jim saying: "Boy Gets Girl Back" while Molly's terrified scream rang in the background…and was suddenly cut off. Then darkness, dragging him down with a sensation of having failed the one person who mattered most.


	2. Let No Man Put Asunder

_A/N: Thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed and followed and favorited this story!_

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Molly screamed as Jim suddenly attacked Sherlock, clubbing him on the forehead with the butt of his pistol. Her scream was cut short, however, as one of the two thugs dashed over and clamped a meaty hand across the lower half of her face, half-smothering her as he very efficiently silenced her.

She could hear John and Mary shouting from the cupboard, the sound of one of them pounding on the door, even the rattle of the latch as she struggled to breathe, but all she could see was Sherlock's unconscious, bleeding form at her feet as she clawed at the hand covering her face in a futile effort to free herself.

The sight of Jim stepping directly in front of her captured her attention, especially once he held up a large syringe filled with a clear liquid, a few drops dripping from the tip. "Your choice, Molly," he said, capturing her eyes with his, a small smile playing about his lips. "The easy way, or the hard way." He leaned forward to whisper in her ear, "And we both know who'll suffer most if you go for the hard way, don't we." Then he laid a deliberate hand on her still-flat abdomen, splaying his fingers out and giving a light caress before pulling back to study her.

He must have read her decision in what he could see of her face or in her body language, because he jerked his head and the hand covering her face vanished, although it then clamped itself on her shoulder. She took a breath, then another, trying to calm herself enough to speak rationally, while Jim watched her with the patience of a predator who knows the inevitability of the outcome.

"I'll go with you," she said when she felt she could trust her voice. Thankfully there were no tears, although she knew they would come later. "Just…promise me you'll let everyone else go."

Jim's smile widened into a delighted grin. "I knew you'd be sensible, Molly, you always were a pragmatic girl at heart. As for letting everyone else go, well…" His features dropped into an exaggerated frown and he shook his head slowly. "Sorry, Molly, but no can do. Oh, everyone here," he raised a hand and waved it lazily about to indicate the other captives, "gets to go free; after all, a proper Boy Meets Girl story has to have some sort of romantic tension to it, doesn't? The spurned lover trying to come between Boy and Girl, not to mention the domesticated assassin gunning for said Boy…" He glanced over at the closet, and Molly went cold at the thought that Jim Moriarty knew Mary's secret, the one they'd all worked so hard to keep others from discovering. "But yes, I'll leave Sherlock and the Watsons alive for now, and as for Judge Harding…"

This time he glanced over Molly's shoulder, to the fiftyish man who'd performed the wedding ceremony. Was Moriarty about to reveal that he hadn't, after all, been the real judge, but a decoy, a fake? Were she and Sherlock not legally married after all?

"The judge will wait exactly thirty minutes after that door closes behind the four of us." He nodded at the door to the judge's chambers, with its frosted glass panels and brass fixtures. "Then he'll let the Watsons out so they can report your kidnapping. After he does that, he'll go here." He pulled a small business card from his suit jacket pocket and flipped it toward the older man, who fumbled but caught it in his hands. "That's where she'll be waiting, your little Christina. His granddaughter," he added, turning his attention back to Molly. "As the late, unlamented Charles Augustus Magnussen would say, his pressure point."

He grinned toothily and it took everything in her not to shrink back as he held out his hand. "Come along, Molly. We have one quick stop to make before we head out of the country."

"Where are you taking me?" Molly asked as she felt his fingers curl around her own, tugging her away from the thug behind her. She felt the other man's hand release her shoulder, but the itching sensation on the back of her neck told her he was watching her, waiting for her to try something. If it was just her own life at stake, she probably would, rather than allow herself to be so docilely lead away from her husband and friends, but there was another life to consider now, the one she and Sherlock had so impetuously made the night he confessed that his feelings for her went beyond mere friendship.

She didn't look down at Sherlock's unconscious form, knowing that if she did so she'd lose her nerve, do something stupid and end up being drugged by Moriarty. A fate she wished to avoid at all costs; it would kill her if she did anything to cause harm to the small life developing inside her.

"Just a quick stop at Baker Street to pick up little Lucy Watson. After all, Baby Sherlock needs a big sister to look after him." He turned to face Molly again with a gleam in his eyes that wasn't quite sane. "What an adorable family you three are going to be – a Holmes and a Watson for me to raise, with you as their loving Mummy."

Without looking, he tossed the gun he'd been holding into the air, where it was deftly caught by the closer of the two thugs. Molly bit her lip, nails digging into the palms of her hands as she realized that Moriarty knew the one thing she'd hoped had escaped his notice. He beckoned her closer, then paused and glanced down at Sherlock. Molly's gaze involuntarily followed his, and she flinched as she saw how badly her husband's head was bleeding, the waxiness of his skin, the darkening bruise on his forehead.

It wasn't Sherlock's head that had caught Moriarty's attention, however; as Molly watched, he knelt down and took Sherlock's hand in his, carefully working the wedding band off his finger. Then he stood up, examining it carefully before sliding it onto his own finger. Then he smiled brightly and offered Molly his arm. "Well! Here we are, newlyweds, off on our honeymoon. Won't this be fun, darling?"

Molly was trembling, unable to stop from shaking as she stepped across Sherlock and allowed Jim to take her arm. "Remember, Molly, as long as you cooperate, everyone lives." Jim placed his hand on hers and squeezed; she looked up to meet his gaze and he smiled at her. "This is going to be so much fun, Molly," he assured her. "Just you wait and see."

Then he escorted her out of the judge's chambers, down the hall and out of the building.

She only hoped that Sherlock would recover soon and find them before Molly was forced to play happy families with the madman strolling by her side.


	3. Maid of Honor

_A/N: I own nothing, thank you all for reading, sorry it took so long, enjoy the chapter!_

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It was supposed to be a fraud, the hijacking of the British airwaves by a back-from-the-dead Jim Moriarty. The feed had been traced back to a disgruntled ex-government employee with a history of mental instability, a flair for the dramatic, and a genius for computer hacking. He'd claimed it was 'just a joke', the timing declared a coincidence since he'd had no knowledge of Sherlock's exile.

Some joke. Jim Moriarty really was alive and well. And now he had Molly Hooper and Sherlock's unborn child as hostages against his good behavior.

Judge Harding had done as Moriarty directed, not even attempting first aid on Sherlock's bleeding form until the full thirty minutes the madman had dictated had passed. Sherlock had started coming round not long after John and Mary had been released from the closet, head pounding and blood in his eyes and his only thoughts of Molly and the baby. He'd been forced to stay behind and wait for Lestrade and his officers because of the injury, while John and Mary raced to Baker Street to (fruitlessly, as it would turn out) attempt to stop the kidnapping of their six-month-old daughter.

Judge Harding was in custody; his kidnapped granddaughter had been reunited with her frantic parents, and no one else had been injured or taken. Not even Mrs. Hudson; Moriarty had simply strolled into the building using Molly's key to open the front door, then locked the landlady in 221C after scooping Lucy up. He'd even taken a moment to wave a cocky 'good-bye' at the CCTV camera Mycroft had installed in the entryway…which had been temporarily rerouted to an undisclosed location, just long enough for Moriarty to take Lucy and once again vanish.

If they were anywhere in London, they would be found. The problem was, Sherlock doubted they were in London at all. The journey from the judge's chambers to Baker Street had taken five minutes at most; his particular offices had been chosen for the wedding ceremony due to their proximity, because as soon as the wedding was over the he and Molly were supposed to go off on their honeymoon.

The tickets to Barbados were still in his jacket pocket; the only thing Moriarty had taken from Sherlock's person (besides his wife and unborn child, no, don't think about how much pain that knowledge was causing) was his wedding ring. That, coupled with what John, Mary and the now-incarcerated judge had described, told him exactly what the madman had planned. Picturing him with Sherlock's wedding band on his finger was almost enough to set Sherlock spiraling out of control, but that wouldn't help retrieve Molly and Lucy.

As soon as he was declared fit, he was off, John and Mary hot on his heels. Lestrade had cordoned off Baker Street in order to allow Sherlock the freedom to search for clues, the subtle hints Moriarty must have put in place after he'd stolen Lucy away and driven off in his late model Mercedes. Mrs. Hudson described what had happened before breaking down and apologizing over and over to John and Mary for letting 'that awful man' take their baby.

"It's not your fault," Mary reassured the older woman, taking her in a gentle embrace while her eyes tracked John and Sherlock's movements just outside the front door. She wanted to be out there with the two men, helping them, but right now Mrs. Hudson needed her. However, the second either of them showed signs of getting so much as a sniff of Moriarty's whereabouts, she would be off like a shot and no apologies to anyone. Her baby was in danger, and the woman she'd come to love like the sister she'd lost long ago.

Mary's mobile vibrated suddenly, and she murmured her apologies to Mrs. Hudson as she pulled it out to see who was messaging her. Her blood ran cold as she opened the message and saw a picture of Molly, holding Lucy in her arms and very obviously trying not to cry. Mary heard Mrs. Hudson gasp as she saw the photo, and from the corner of her eye she watched as the older woman groped her way to the stairs and took a seat before burying her face in her hands.

The mobile vibrated again, and Mary shoved her emotions into a box before opening it. The text read simply, "Keep Sherlock and his pet from chasing after us for another hour and maybe I'll let you talk to your daughter. Whoops, sorry, I meant MY daughter, now. Doesn't my Molly make a lovely mother?"

The number was blocked, of course. Sherlock could probably trace it, or get one of his computer genius friends to do it for him, but that would mean she'd have to show him the message and the photo. Which was clearly not what Moriarty wanted her to do.

Secrets. Moriarty was trying to force her back into keeping secrets from her husband and friend; with a scowl, Mary made her decision.

No one was ever holding her hostage against her painfully-won good name ever again. With that in mind, she exited the building and headed purposefully for John and Sherlock.


End file.
